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Mumbai Police Crime Branch arrested on Friday a main conspirator of the 2002 Ghatkopar bomb blast that killed two people and injured 28.

Police said Taj-Ul Islam Quazi fled Mumbai after the blasts and was staying with wife and five children in Hyderabad. He was working with HCL there as a software engineer under the fake name Siddiqui Taj Quazi.

He was produced before Killa Metropolitan Magistrate Court and remanded in police custody till December 3.

Himanshu Roy, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), said Quazi was originally from Aurangabad and a key member of a group led by Dr Abdul Mateen.

“Quazi did not participate in execution of the blast, but he is a member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India,” he said.

A bomb placed under a seat of an empty BEST bus parked near Ghatkopar Railway Station had exploded around 6.45 pm on December 6, 2002.

In 2005, Bombay High Court acquitted all eight arrested accused in the case, first in a series during 2002-2003 in which POTA was invoked, while pulling up Mumbai Police for failing to trace missing accused Khwaja Younus.